Santa came early in 1972. My older brother had taken a civilian job on a military base in Greenland. Out of the blue, he gave me his 1963 Corvair. It was my very first set of wheels. Instead of bracing myself for the thousand mile-long hitchhike from Iowa to Baltimore in freezing weather, I was driving home for Christmas in comfort. But there was a catch: Santa had deputized me. I had a present to deliver, and deliver I would, come hell or high snow. 

My brother was flying in from Baltimore for the Christmas holiday. To repay him for the gifted Corvair, I promised to give his long-suffering girlfriend a ride to our family home. I was really jazzed to see everyone; my sister was coming from Alaska. I envisioned a smooth journey and a joyous reunion.

Although I was already a walking automotive encyclopedia, my practical experience was limited to oil changes. My most ambitious wrenching to date: pulling the cylinder head off the lawn mower years earlier. And it never ran quite the same again. But like most first-time male car owners of my age, I was brimming with mechanical enthusiasm and imagining all kinds of improvements. But it was winter in Iowa and I had no garage. I was just thankful it ran.

Just a few days before the big trip, an ominous metallic clattering arose from the depths of the Corvair’s engine compartment. It would change its timbre when I depressed the clutch pedal. The problem clearly originated in the bell housing.

I weighed all the symptoms, scratched my [then] hirsute head and declared a diagnosis: a bad clutch throw-out bearing. I knew it wasn’t the sound they normally make when they die, but I was stumped for an alternative theory. And forget about getting a second opinion. Nineteen year olds are unassailable experts at everything– unless proven otherwise

I had heard about a co-op garage, where shade tree mechanics could rent semi-warm floor space by the day. I bought a new bearing and drove a couple of miles into the frozen countryside to discover a few hippies attending to their VW buses.

My tool inventory: a box of cheap wrenches and a scissors jack. Normally, the 250lb engine would be lowered on a cradle with the car on a lift. My improvised solution: unhook everything, take the rear wheels off, lower the body until the engine rested on a timber, wiggle and slide the engine back a bit, jack the body up, and then slide the engine out. The only help I got was from John Mayall; it blared on auto-repeat all day.

Miraculously, everything went back together, and it fired right up – with the clanging! I was totally devastated. I broke the bad news to “the present” and my family. I could still hitchhike out alone, but I wasn’t really up for it now. But they kept the faith.

I needed divine intervention. The next afternoon, I saw a Corvair outside a small machine shop; a sign. I entered its machine oil-scented environs and related my sad story to the white-haired owner. With a twinkle in his eye, he told me that the rivets in two-piece Corvair flywheels come loose and cause that sound. “I’ll fix it for $10 bucks.”

Back to John Mayall’s blues and the co-op garage. By the time I finally got the flywheel out, it was 1AM and ten degrees. I’ll never forget that three-mile walk back into town, under a starry sky, carrying that heavy flywheel. A wise(r) man bearing his heavy gift.

The next day was the twenty-second. I got the flywheel re-riveted and put it all together again-– a lot more quickly the second time ‘round. I fell exhausted into bed that night, anticipating the next day’s drive. But deep in my heavy, youthful slumber, I suddenly bolted awake (hooves on the roof?). It was 3AM. I looked out the window, and snow was coming down so thick, I could hardly see the street light. And there was already six inches on the ground.

Blizzards blew in from the west. I decided to go for it; I’d try and outrun the wintry blast. It was now or never. With its rear-engined traction, the newly-purring Corvair cut the only set of tracks through Iowa City that night.

I-80 was deserted; we were the only drivers foolhardy enough to be out there, or maybe they were covered by the swirling snow. Luckily, I’d practiced for this. I had the right car for the job. And I relished the challenge. I worked-up my speed to about forty, hoping the storm wasn’t moving faster than us. Once across the Mississippi, the snow started to thin. My brother’s present and I shared a relieved smile. We’d be home for Christmas.  

What eye-candy poster was pinned up on your bedroom wall when you were thirteen? A black Lamborghini Countach sprouting numerous spoilers? Farah Fawcett-Majors with blindingly-white teeth? Metallica? KISS? What I gazed lovingly upon– whilst sprawled across my bed– was a giant detailed cross-sectional drawing of a Chrysler hemi engine. Thus was the spell that the mythical engine had on me.

I spent days painstakingly making the icon myself, recreating an image from a library book unto the large poster board with nothing more than a ruler, pencil and magic marker. It was my masterpiece, my Mona Lisa. I had finally and fully unveiled the mystery beneath those giant valve covers. The hemispherical combustion chambers, complex valve train and gracefully curving ports were revealed in graphic detail, as explicitly on display as Miss April in the Playboy centerfold under my mattress.

In earlier years, I would peer endlessly into any open engine compartment. Although largely ignorant of the actual thermodynamic differences, I had intuited a distinct pecking order for the distinctive cylinder head configurations: flathead, conventional overhead valve (OHV) and hemi-head. Flatheads spoke old-school; big rectangular lumps of cast iron, almost lost in the depths of the deep engine compartments of the times. And once having seen that slab of a flathead cylinder head removed, the torturous path afforded the intake and exhaust gases was obviously inferior.

The usual OHV configuration– with valves lined up side-by-side under their narrow valve covers– spoke of modernity, efficiency and the ability to make decent power in Detroit’s postwar generation of V8s. But one glance at those huge wide valve covers perched on Chrysler’s FirePower hemi V8 inspired awe. I instantly knew that it was designed for one thing, and one thing only: power.

With valves canted some 60 degrees, they could be bigger. Intake and exhaust ports were both a straight shot into their respective manifolds, dramatically improving breathing. I knew Chrysler hadn’t invented the hemi. The 1912 Peugeot grand prix engine had them (as well as DOHC and four valves per cylinder). Hemis were common in Europe, and used on the Miller/Offenhauser racing engines. But Chrysler was the first to adapt them to the sedate, slow-revving Yank tank engine bays.

Starting with a mild 180hp in 1951, Chrysler quickly began to develop the hemi’s potential, and soon dominated the horsepower war of the fifties. The crowning glory was the 1955 Chrysler 300, the first production vehicle to sport the eponymous amount of horsepower. It would top 130mph straight off the showroom floor. The 1957 300C’s 390hp represented a doubling of power in just six years– and then some. It was a milestone. An instant classic.

Hot rodders knew a winner when they saw it. The hemi quickly became the ticket on the drag strip. With a giant blower forcing a nitro mixture into massaged hemi heads, thousands of horsepower could be extracted. That seemed miraculous to me, given that our elderly neighbor’s 1956 Windsor generated all of 225p. No wonder I stared reverently as he burbled down the street at 20mph; I knew the awesome potential that was waiting to be unleashed under that long hood.

Unfortunately, the hemi’s capabilities carried a penalty. The complicated engine was expensive to build, and heavy. By 1958, Chrysler pulled the plug.  The company developed a completely new hemi– the 426 — for NASCAR racing in 1964. It was never intended as a production engine; Chrysler was forced to adapt it for civilian use when NASCAR threatened to ban it otherwise. The hemi was reincarnated, in even more mythical form.

Although 426 hemis terrorized the stock car circuits and drag strips, they were not exactly common on the street. But thanks to my first job at fifteen, pumping extra-high-octane Sunoco 260 gas, I had regular close encounters of the hemi kind with a Plymouth GTX.

I couldn’t wait to pop the hood to gaze reverentially on that huge orange and crackle-black icon. As an ex-altar boy, my instinct was to genuflect, especially when that heady incense of hot oil and crankcase vapors hit my nostrils. I felt privileged to check its vital fluids, and eventually, screwed up the courage to ask if I could check the air filter. The owner obliged, even though he knew it was just a ruse to see the two enormous four-barrel Carter carburetors in their naked splendor.

Tempus fugit. Those days of heady hemi horsepower are long gone. You know it’s a different age when Chrysler files a trademark on the hemi name– boldly emblazoning it on cars and trucks with oversized HEMI badges– even though the engine powering them isn’t really a hemi (it’s more accurately a “pent-roof”). It’s no wonder the wonder’s gone, genuine hemis are notoriously “dirty” but it’s sad nonetheless. That thing got a hemi? Not really, no.

The pop rivets on the crudely fabricated rocker panels were a dead giveaway: tell-tales of ill health under the distraction of a box fresh $29.95 Earl Scheib paint job. I noticed the rivets as soon as the smarmy soon-to-be seller of the ’57 MGA pulled into the driveway. But I was 15, and not the intended victim. That would be my older brother, who was utterly blinded by lust as the late-summer sun sparkled on the curvaceous roadster. He was 19, and about to enter that unique form of parallel hell endemic to the ownership of a clapped-out rusty English car. His only consolation: unlike most self-inflicted drives to auto-hell, his would at least be fairly quick, and a one-way trip.

My nagging doubts about the rocker panels were instantly forgotten during my first ride. Sitting inches above the pavement, elbows hanging out over the low-cut doors, the warm evening air assaulting my head from all directions, I was intoxicated. And since I didn’t own the fragile roadster, there was no hangover… for me.

In its prime, the MGA’s 1500cc engine had made all of 72hp. For England in the mid nineteen-fifties, that might have been sufficient.  By the late sixties in the US, the tired MG was anything but fast. But the cacophony of loose valves, rattling main bearings and howling drive-line components overlaid with the “vintage roadster coefficient” made any speed seem at least three times faster. Which was just as well, what with its balding el-cheapo tires and drum brakes that oozed their vital fluid as copiously as St. Francis’ stigmata.

The big Jaeger speedometer did nothing to dispel the sensation of speed; its spastic pulsations were indecipherable above forty-five. Who cared? Most MG’s had never been fast cars. They just felt that way– until 1968, when smog controls choked off even the illusion of speed.

The key to enjoying the elderly MGA’s still-precise steering and other remaining talents: getting lost on north Baltimore County’s winding rural roads. On these near-perfect facsimiles of narrow English country roads, the roadster made its origins and preferences perfectly clear. 

Joyriding was its métier, as well as mine. More than once, I surreptitiously took the roadster out for a spin during my pre-license driving era (sorry about that, bro, I just couldn’t resist). Driving the MGA released an adrenalin-heavy hormonal cocktail, as I worried about getting caught and/or whether or not the old heap would make it home.

My brother’s daily commute to college was the MG’s ostensible mission, and the rationale used to talk my father into financing the acquisition. Needless to say, post-purchase, practically every major system of the roadster failed in rapid succession: the notorious “Prince of Darkness” Lucas electrics, those leaky brakes, the anachronistic lever shocks, the perpetually unsynchronized Skinners Union carburetors. The left front fender went MIA after a frat party. It’s a good thing my brother’s buddy drove a boring but dead-reliable Chevy sedan.

Despite being out of action for weeks at a time that first winter, the pop-riveted rocker panels crudely fabricated from hardware store sheet metal began to disintegrate. This opened-up an ever-widening gap between the floor boards and the doors. It was handy for discrete refuse disposal, but not so pleasant in the rain (as if an MG roadster could ever be so). Army surplus blankets were literally pressed into service to keep out the precipitation.

At least the clattering, worn-out engine obligingly held on a few months longer, when income from a summer job and warm weather made an engine transplant from a Nash Metropolitan feasible (it used the same BMC B-series engine). And a bright red front fender acquired through unconventional means restored the body to a vague semblance of wholeness– even though it clashed with the Kermit-the-frog green paint job. In 1969, the car looked almost fashionable.

That summer’s endless greasy and sweaty labors only temporarily forestalled the MG’s suicidal tendencies. Within months, the transplanted Metropolitan engine gave up the ghost, perhaps a form of organ rejection. The MG sat forlorn in the driveway leaking bodily fluids until my father called a wrecker, sealing its final fate.

And since he was called upon to finance its replacement, something more practical was in order. My brother settled on a three-year old ’66 VW Beetle, still in the prime of its life. The Volks was the antithesis of the MGA in every respect except speed. It gave faultless, economical service for years to come.

Now you might think that I would have learned to stay away from old MG’s, watching my brother and his ever leakier barchetta inexorably founder in a sea of brake fluid, oil and gas. And I did, for a good ten years. But youthful memory is short. I eventually succumbed to MG fever. But that’s another story.

Readers who’ve accompanied me on this long, strange trip– from my automotive awakening to this, the final installment of my Auto-Biography– may recall my earliest childhood memory: riding in a 1950’s VW Beetle in Austria. The bug was the automotive womb from which I sprang. I’ve carried the Volkswagen DNA ever since. Even as a freewheeling young adult, I was a loyal Volkswagonista. Eventually I strayed, looking for more space, speed, comfort and even prestige. But I’ve finally returned to my automotive happy place, reunited with my one true love.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one who wandered away from my roots. Volkswagen abandoned the original “People’s Car” decades ago; the New Beetle was/is nothing more than a pretender to the throne. But the Volkswagen formula– an innovative, thrifty, well-built, practical, distinctive and fun automobile– is immortal.

Like the hunt for a successor Dalai Lama, it took me a while to recognize the Beetle’s latest incarnation. (Of course, there were others even before the VW.) One look at the xB’s design and I got it: the Beetle had metamorphosed (and disguised itself) as… a box.

Like many enthusiasts of a certain age, I was thrown off-scent by Scion’s self-conscious youth marketing and hype. I avoid fads like the plague; the harder someone tries to tell me something’s cool, the less I believe them. But one day I cleared my mind of all thoughts and saw the xBox for the remarkably creative, compelling and timeless Volkswagen it really is.

There was a time when the word “cool” stood for something. For going against the grain. For being truly different and authentic. The Volkswagen Beetle had it; it was an extended middle finger at everything the Big Three stood for. And it single-handedly started a revolution that brought Detroit to its knees.

Toyota also had captured lightning in a jar. The original xBox went against the grain of today’s super-sized, overwrought, flamed and fake-side-air-vented automotive fashion parade every bit as much as the Beetle did against the fins, chrome and vinyl roofs of its time.

The brave little Japanese toaster was just hitting its stride. With a little updating (like VW’s), the xB could have been built for decades. It would have made the perfect low-CO2 era NYC taxi cab: half the price of a hybrid Escape, bigger interior, nimbler and better mileage. Don’t get me started, I can spit out other applications and variants (sedan delivery, El Camino-pickup, etc.) all day long.

In fact, if I had serious money, I’d replicate a whole family of xB’s in China and sell them for $10k by the millions. And I’d can the youth marketing thing; the gen one Xb’s qualities (like the VW’s) are universal. They appeal to the young at heart of all ages.

But Toyota threw it all away. In a misguided attempt to give Japanese youth appeal an American mien, it killed the coolest car since the Beetle. When I tested the new xB, urgency followed horror. I fully saw the light of truth, and found myself an immaculate low-mileage five-speed ’05 xB.

I am enraptured. The Scion xBox works perfectly for my middle-aged needs. It’s my urban errand-mobile that keeps me young carving back-road twisties– yet pampers my 6’4” frame with Tahoe-sized stretch-out room. The upright seating position, vast headroom, vertically-flat windows and, especially, the round instrument pod, all invoke (and improve upon) the VW Beetle experience.

I can shuttle my gangly teenage son and his friends without feeling their knees in my backside, or flip down the rear seats and haul bags of insulation or a range. 

The little 1.5-liter engine’s torque curve isn’t a curve at all; it’s flat as a board. Also very Beetle like, except that instead of petering out at 3600 rpm, it just keeps on winding with lusty eagerness. The 108hp on tap is triple of what my slug-bugs had. Yet no matter how I flog it, fuel economy is exactly what I got back then: 32mpg. Almost fifty years in profligate America haven’t wiped out my Austrian appreciation for thrift.

My wife used to suggest that I indulge my nostalgia and buy an old Beetle. But this is the best of both worlds. It’s youthful nostalgia reincarnated with real progress: twice the interior room, three times the power, same mileage, modern amenities and all for pretty much the same (inflation-adjusted) 1960’s VW price. And the Scion’s much higher fun-to-drive quotient is the icing on the cake.

In the end, that’s what Volkswagens (and I) are all about: the sheer joy of communion with honest, simple and fun-to-drive mechanized locomotion. As I look back on my automotive life, I do so with absolute clarity. These plain virtues spoke to me as a toddler. The recipe has never lost its magic. And it never will.

 It was literally a dark and stormy night in Oregon last December when I sat down and wrote the first Chapter of my Auto-Biography. I had never written for publication before, so I had no idea how it would be received and if there would be any subsequent chapters. But thanks to the unwavering support, encouragement and deft editing of TTAC chief scribe Robert Farago, the series took on a life of its own. There were times I almost gave up, but Robert always kept the faith. Thank you, my friend.

And a big thanks to all of you loyal readers. I can’t fully convey how much your encouraging comments have meant to me. Writing for an appreciative audience is inspiring and gratifying. And the stories you’ve added have been icing on the cake. Thanks for sharing.

I’m going to take a hiatus from writing for a while; I have some demanding building projects to attend to. But next winter I’m going to contemplate a book version of the Auto-Biography.

Please give me your frank and constructive comments about the highs and lows of the series, and any thoughts you might have about a book version. Should the chapters be expanded perhaps, and turned into text-rich “reading” book, or kept more or less intact, with perhaps a page of related images for each one (“lite reading”)?

In any case, thanks for sharing my love for all things automotive.

Twenty years ago, I was a well-heeled young exec. One day, I decided to indulge in a four-wheeled “weekend toy.” Instead of a Dino or XK-E, I dropped $500 on a 1966 Ford F-100 pickup. Sure, I’d harbored fantasies about Ferraris and Jags for years. But I didn’t want to be saddled with an expensive toy that offered temporary or unreliable escape. My dream has always been about real freedom. The freedom to wake up in the morning, sniff the air and go… berry picking! Lumber hauling! The simple, rugged, frugal Ford represented my ideal life. And I knew it would get me there.

For the first five years, I used my weekend toy to haul brush and tree trimmings to the dump. The dump road had numerous tight switchbacks; my kids and I have many happy memories exaggeratedly leaning over on top of each other going around the hairpins. Coming back down the road, I’d turn the ignition off and on, creating lovely explosions out the tailpipe. One time I waited too long and blew out the muffler, ending that noisy pastime.

Five years later, a corporate purge swept away my executive status. I reckoned it was time to go for the dream of a simpler, more honest life. So I sold our expensive Los Gatos property, hooked-up a trailer to the old Ford, loaded our worldly goods and headed north to Oregon.

I bought property, subdivided, and had a bunch of old houses that were about to be torn down moved unto my lots. “Old Yellow” and I were working hard now, doing it all ourselves. When the houses were all fixed up and rented out, I knew that the dream had pretty much come true.

Now, when I drive my battered Ford into a parking lot full of giant 4×4 mega-cab turbo-diesel 24” chrome-wheeled trucks, I chuckle about the millions in equity I made by putting all my dough into assets that appreciate, instead of these rapidly-depreciating show-off toys.

The F-100 is a half-ton pickup rated to carry 1200lbs, motivated by the 129hp “small” 240CID six. It’s tough as nails, never failing to pull or carry anything I’ve asked it to. One time I weighed-out with 3500lbs of building rocks at the local quarry and created a killer low-rider. I’ve also pulled Bobcats on trailers weighing well over 7k lbs. The Ford takes it all in stride.

Since my three-speed doesn’t have a “granny” low gear, I have to plan my route to avoid stopping on a steep incline while grossly overloaded. I stay in low gears coming down hills, as the drum brakes are next to useless.

With no power steering, power brakes or smog controls, there’s very little to break or replace. And so the F-100 rarely breaks down. When it does, it’s the easiest vehicle imaginable to fix. It’s had a new clutch, and the fiber camshaft gear broke recently. Since I replaced it with a heavy-duty steel gear, it howls like a 1920’s blower Bentley.

The Ford’s blessed with a Warner T-85 HD three-speed with overdrive. Freeway cruising is relaxed at 2000rpm (and 20 mpg). Because the OD also has free-wheeling, the transmission shifts without declutching. By splitting the gears with the OD, six ratios are always at hand to play with. It’s a great device for baffling passengers.

But I have to stay on the ball; I don’t want to be caught on a long downhill with the freewheeling on. The little drums will smoke and be useless well before a full stop. The litigation era sealed the overdrive unit’s future.

Plenty of well meaning folks have suggested swapping out the F-100’s drums for disc brakes, or upgrading to a V8 and automatic. But they’re missing the point. Today’s vehicles are utterly effortless and disengaging (no wonder drivers are multi-tasking and babbling on their cell phones). I love driving and enjoy the challenges– and limitations– of the old Ford.

The F-100 doesn’t have a radio and I don’t carry a cell phone; the piece of plywood covering up the pickup’s radio hole gave graphic meaning to my son’s (mis)understanding of the word “dashboard”.

From time to time I take the old beast out for a brisk outing through the local hills and winding roads. Then my easily provoked imagination takes over. I’m driving one of my all-time fantasy cars, a 1920’s era Bentley: a big straight six with howling cam-gear drive, manual choke, complicated gears, leaf springs and solid axles, a giant steering wheel and puny brakes. It’s the unmitigated joy of pushing elemental machinery to its maximum capabilities.

And on the way home I can stop off at the quarry and pick up a ton of rock for that wall I’m building. Try doing that with the typical weekend fantasy toy.

Five years ago, on a whim, I rented an RV and we headed for the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. The late October weather was exquisite; we didn’t see a single cloud for the whole two weeks. And the scenery was stunningly, drop-dead awesome. Once again, my wife and I (and now our youngest son) were hooked on the freedom of the open road and self-contained camping. But steep prices and free-fall depreciation of new RV’s was off-putting. But the answer was waiting just down the street…

Walking down the street a couple of weeks later, I stumbled upon a 1977 Dodge Chinook camper wearing a FOR SALE sign. Seeing it instantly triggered the “Oregon wet winter escape plan.” Standing there in the street looking at the dirty and dusty old camper, I worked it all out in my imagination.

Other than an impaled branch sticking out of its fiberglass roof like an antler, the Chinook looked in fairly good shape. The seller was “motivated,” he gladly took my $1200.

The Chinook Concourse is a contemporary classic, the big brother to those little Toyota pop-up Chinooks. It created and defined the just-right sized (at least for us) Class B camper: bigger than a van conversion, smaller than the cab-over Class C.

With its bulletproof 360 (5.9-liter) V8 and A727 Torqueflite transmission, I knew it had good bones. So I taught myself fiberglass repair and embarked on a major interior makeover. Stephanie loving restored the original seventies-vintage paisley curtains, but the smelly, mildewed lime-green shag carpeting had to go.

I barely finished the cabin before my son’s Christmas school break. With no time for a mechanical check-out, we packed up and headed south.

Thirty minutes into our intended three-thousand mile winter journey to sunny Baja, reality crashed the party. On the first incline on I-5, the engine began clattering horrendously. I suddenly realized that this trip was even crazier than stunts that I’d performed when I was less than half my [then] age.

The clattering was just way-off timing, easily adjusted twice (by ear) on the freeway shoulder. But the rest of drive through the mountains to California was hair-raising. While my family sacked out in back, I fought driving rain, snow and high winds with numb and loose power steering.

When we hit the Bay Area, I had to replace a screaming fan clutch in front of my up-tight sister-in law’s house. To her, we were just like the Griswold’s hillbilly relatives (a la National Lampoon’s “Vacation” movie) who show up in their decrepit RV and spew raw sewage all over their street.

Heading toward San Diego, the front wheel bearings began howling like a wolf in heat. Instead of grease, they were coated in dry rusty powder. After attending to that, it was smooth sailing.

We explored both coasts of Baja in record-breaking January warmth. Near La Bufadora, we boogy-boarded in the Pacific for hours. When we got cold, we warmed up in the natural hot spring that bubbled up in the sand. Having recharged our internal solar cells and filled-up on cerveza Pacifico and one dollar fish tacos, we reluctantly piled into the Chinook and headed back for El Norte.

During the following three years, we racked up over 25k miles on the Chinook on rambling trips throughout the West and Baja. We hit all the famous scenic spots and places we never knew existed. October rocks in the West: cold starry nights, clear days, no tourists.

Since we strictly dry-camp (no hook-ups), we head up logging roads or out across the desert when night falls. Sitting in a natural hot-springs pool with a bottle of wine in a remote high-desert valley with the lights in the Chinook softly glowing nearby– now that’s my idea of a five star resort. Save the cost of gas (11mpg), the price is right.

After some card games or Scrabble, we always sleep like babes in the Chinook, oblivious to our collective snoring and the howling coyotes.

The Dodge V8 exhales with delightful burbling and woofling through its low-restriction muffler and driver’s side side-pipe. I always have my window open part-ways to listen to its reassuring song as we sail the seas of the Great Plateau.

Sadly, the Chinook now gets little use; my son’s too big to fit in his little “bookshelf” bed. Anyway, his high school doesn’t have long off-season breaks and he has bigger fish to fry than camping with his parents. 

In a few more years, we’ll be free again. Stephanie and I will hit the road in earnest. In the meantime, the Chinook makes a perfect guest house. When our house gets too noisy and crowded with company, I go sleep out in the camper, dreaming of sunny Baja beaches and fish tacos.

Instead of holding down a “real” job and paying other professionals to maintain my lifestyle, I stay at home and do it all myself: rebuild old houses, deliver the children, grow our organic berries and fix the cars. One day, back in ’99, this shade-tree mechanic finally grew tired of wrestling with the Gordian knot of hoses and wires nestling underneath our fifteen-year-old Cherokee. When the Jeep’s headliner let go and draped me in rancid mouse fur, I’d had enough. 

That Saturday, I opened the paper and saw an ad for a new Subaru Forester– “one at this price”– for $17,999. An hour later I was driving it back home.

I only wish the “advertised special” hadn’t been forest green; turns out Oregonians have designated Subaru Foresters of this hue the state’s official car. Not long after purchase, I found myself parking between two other identical machines. The three of them spooning looked positively incestuous. It took considerable resolve not to drive it straight to Earl Scheib to have it painted bright yellow.

Otherwise, the Subie’s been a highly satisfying all-weather, all-purpose friend. How many cars at this price can deliver genuine driving pleasure in so many different circumstances? Snow, dirt trails, high speed blasts, winding forest roads– its willingness to take on anything, anywhere, like an eager-to-please puppy, is downright heartening.

And just like hyper-active puppies, Subies have hearty appetites (24 mpg average). Unless you’re trading down from a Navigator, Subaru’s carefully-cultured “green credentials” are empty posturing. Maybe that’s why Subaru sales are off this year, and Prius’ are way up.

But other than its regular swill of aromatic hydrocarbons, our Forester is as undemanding as a hermit walled up in a Himalayan cave. Our Amana refrigerator has needed more parts.

When our faithful beast of burden hit 100k miles after seven years, it was time to tally up just exactly how much (little) it’s cost us so far: $23,603, or 23.6 cents per mile. I DO like driving for less than half price (Edmunds projects 50 cents per mile).

The only times the Forester saw the dealer was for a warranty-covered rear wheel bearing and an oxygen sensor recall. Except for another wheel bearing ($190 at a shop), my ministrations were strictly limited to routine driveway maintenance.

My deep DIY streak has drafted the Forester into duties not typical for its cute-ute genre. When my ’66 Ford pickup conked out at the dump, did I call a tow truck? Not. The Forester towed me home with the tow rope I always keep stowed in the truck. The AAA has never seen a cent from me.

And until I fixed the truck (a broken cam gear), the Forester became my ersatz pickup, hooked up to the six-by-ten-foot utility trailer.

The Forester has been a reliable hit for Subaru as well as the Niedermeyers. When it was introduced in 1997, its dynamic qualities really stood out against the weak-chested first generation RAV4 (120hp) and CR-V (126hp). With 165hp from its lusty boxer four, a well sorted rally-proven chassis, and Subaru’s faultless AWD system, it literally ran rings around its competitors. The Turbo models that came later are genuine Q-ships that hold their own against much pricier competition (I’m looking at you Turbo Cayenne).

In California, my automotive “fix” was pushing the sonic barrier on remoter sections of freeways or high-desert roads with the 300E. In Oregon, my fix is WRX-style (sideways) gravel road thrills. The hills and mountains here are riddled with thousands of miles of US Forest Service roads (your tax dollars at work). It’s not a sport for the faint-hearted; if you leave the road (unintended), it might be months before someone finds your remains moldering at the bottom of a ravine.

Subaru’s AWD system is perfectly transparent and effective, without any of that annoying electronic traction control “stuttering”. This stokes the confidence level and contributes materially to smooth power-on drifts on gravel.

A typical Sunday outing involves a stretch of winding highway along a whitewater river, and then steep and/or tightly winding gravel roads to a favorite hiking spot. A ten-mile hike through some (hopefully) remaining old-growth trees results in endless vistas from a craggy peak, as well as a substantially slower drive home.

The Forester is equally happy doing the I-5 shuttle to California. My quickest round trip? I left Eugene at 6am to pick up my son in Sacramento (exactly 1000 miles roundtrip) and was back in time for a 7pm minor-league baseball game.

Not aggressively sporty, but perpetually competent and composed, the Forester always keeps its cool no matter what the driver (or road surface) throws at it.  Looking after the Subaru has done wonders for my own composure. Swear words emanating from the garage are down by some ninety percent.

Unless you live under a highway, an empty box has no intrinsic value; it’s what’s inside that counts. The Dodge Grand Caravan we bought in 1992 was little more than a big dumb box on wheels. But by the time I got rid of it fifteen years later, I’d filled the Caravan with a lifetime of family memories.

Needless to say, it all started with the birth of my youngest son. Since I delivered Will at home myself (the midwife was stuck in traffic), the memories of his delivery are all-too vivid. I’ll skip the details here. Suffice it to say, his arrival triggered a strong and sensible desire for three door transportation.

Harboring well-founded suspicions about Chryslers’ reliability, I had my eye on a Toyota Previa. But Stephanie had exacting specifications: our minivan had to have room for a large stroller behind the last seat AND the bass-viol of one of the school carpoolers. The Dodge Boys’ best vanquished the Toy.

Back in ’92, demand for Caravans outstripped supply; we paid close to list price. Today, our $22k would be worth $32k. I see new Caravans advertised for under $20k. That 40 percent drop in transaction price says a lot about Chrysler’s woes.

Anyway, I should have skipped the optional four-speed transmission and ABS brakes; I’d have saved money up front and endless trips to the dealer. I went through four rubber-band “Ultramatic” transmissions before receiving one (at 88k miles) that lasted the duration.

The Caravan’s Bendix ABS brakes were so notoriously unreliable (and unsafe) that Chrysler was forced to offer a lifetime warranty. Which I used on a regular basis, returning to the dealer every couple of years to have the ABS pump replaced.

The last time, just six months ago, was almost comical. I reckon it would have been cheaper for Chrysler to buy back the remaining ’92-’93 ABS-equipped Caravans rather than constantly replace the offending unit.

Don’t get me wrong: Chrysler’s minivans were a breakthrough in 1984. A big box with car-like feel, performance and handling was new and overdue. (VW’s van was the ultimate wheeled box, but lacked the requisite passenger-car characteristics.) The Dodge Caravan made boxes both palatable and madly popular, especially when the long wheelbase version and V6 came along.

It was the family bus, and I’ve always enjoyed being a bus driver. From our very first family vacation to dozens of school field-trips, from guided tours all over California and Oregon to canoe trips to Waldo Lake, right to this spring’s full-family trip to the Portland car show, every time I heard the Caravan’s sliding door slam shut on a load of passengers, I felt fulfilled.

Looking into the rear-view mirror and seeing a half-dozen sleeping heads keeled-over in all directions while streaking across the high desert at the ton made me feel wonderfully alive and perfectly useful.

My utility was obvious enough when I repaired the Caravan’s smashed-in front end using a come-along and junk-yard parts. My older son had the inevitable first rear-ender; the van wasn’t worth collision coverage. The Dodge ended looking up like a veteran boxer’s face: functional, asymmetrical and not very pretty.

During the same son’s amateur cinematography phase, the van was as a rolling camera platform, shooting from the opened side door. Unfortunately, a spirited braking maneuver sent the door crashing forward, never to close with again with its original precision.

My younger son and I yanked the seats out and turned it into an impromptu camper for rambling trips into the Sierras. The Caravan became the inspiration for a Dodge camper (soon to appear).

For the first eight years, the Caravan was Stephanie’s ride. When we sold the Jeep and bought the Forester, she fell in love with the Subie. Since I work from home or use my old truck for building projects, the van I never wanted fell into my hands.

As a tall not-quite-dead white man, I began to increasingly appreciate the roomy front seat real-estate. So I started using it as a dry and warm alternative to the breezy pick-up in Oregon’s long wet winters. Lumber, sheets of plywood and drywall, appliances, you name it, it all slipped readily into the big box. I grudgingly suffered its practicality on weekdays, knowing that the Forester was on tap for weekend recreation.

One day, a couple of months ago, I just couldn’t face the plodding Caravan any more. I had to have something that brought a smile to my face, even on the run to Home Depot. It had to be efficient and haul my gangly fifteen year-old son and his friends around without feeling their knees in my backside.

The solution was another box, but smaller and frisky: a (gen 1) Scion xB. I’m off to a running start, filling it up with memories.

If you’re looking for someone to blame for the whole yuppie-SUV fad, look no further. Back when I was bouncing over Rocky Mountain off-road trails in my VW bug, I sneered at actual Jeeps. And when I headed out across the desert in my Dodge van, I (almost) never missed having four-wheel drive. The moment we became city folks with kids, we just had to have a genuine 4X4 SUV.

When we were first married, Stephanie and I would jump in the van and head for the woods or desert every weekend. But when the two rug-rats appeared (not so mysteriously), it wasn’t so easy anymore. We spent most weekends at the park, zoo or beach. Turns out there’s nothing like feeling trapped in the city to make you a sucker for the scale-the-Himalayas SUV marketing fantasy.

Initially, I was infatuated with the idea of an International Scout, then available with a turbocharged Nissan diesel engine. But it was too gnarly for Stephanie to take seriously as a kiddie-taxi. Not for the first time in my life, fantasy outstripped practical reality.

But Detroit was reading my mind; they launched a wave of civilized cute-utes. In 1983, a Ford dealer leased us a fresh-as-a-filly Bronco II for six months, in exchange for TV ads. Within ten blocks of handover, I was ready to take it back.

Driving the Bronco was like riding a unicycle; staying upright was a constant struggle. The combination of a short 94” wheelbase, swing-axle front suspension and a high center of gravity turned out to be… challenging (deadly for others). As a practiced unicyclist, I eventually got the hang of keeping the Bronco upright, but I was never fond of vertigo.

After six months, I sent the lil’ Bronc back home, hopefully to grow up. We checked out the newly-released Jeep Cherokee (XJ). One short test drive and– predictably enough– we bought it on the spot. Compared to the Bronco, the Cherokee handled like a Ferrari.

Though launched four years after John Travolta’s hard hat days and honky-tonk nights, the Cherokee was the fuse that led directly to the explosion of four-wheeled Urban Cowboys. Virtually overnight, our pre-school parking lot was full of Cherokees. And I gotta say, the Jeep was a brilliant piece of kit.

At 3100 lbs, the Cherokee was a featherweight by today’s bloated standards. [A 4,225 lbs. Jeep Liberty? Don’t try to tell me that air bags weigh half a ton.] Foreshadowing the current trend, the Cherokee was a unibody SUV, and a tough one at that. With solid axles and a Quadra-Link suspension up front, it could hop boulders with genuine élan.

I never got into four-wheeling as a sport; ours was bone-stock. But that didn’t stop us taking long rambling trips throughout the West, getting as close to lost as possible. I always carried detailed maps that showed unimproved roads and trails. Usually, there weren’t any “consequences.” But we sure came close.

We were heading for Bryce Canyon National Park from the south. The only roads into Bryce are from the north; it was going to be one Hell of a detour. But one of my maps indicated a faint line. Good enough for me. We worked our way higher and higher into exquisitely pristine back country. Eventually our “road” became a steep trail. Then we started crossing banks of snow in the shadows.

It was late in the day. The spring-time snow became deeper, the trail steeper. I figured that backing down was riskier than keeping up our speed. So I kept the hammer down and maintained enough momentum to crash through the ever bigger snow banks. We had no sleeping bags, shovel, or winch. But we did have two little kids.

I didn’t stop sweating bullets until we reached the top.

Of course, most of the Jeep’s miles were racked up less eventfully, bombing down the freeways of LA. After we moved to Oregon and sold the Benz, the Jeep became my car.

Oregon is a back-roads paradise. The boys and I took full advantage of our new-found freedom. We’d “get lost” in the high desert and mountains for weeks at a time. 

Ah, memories— bought and paid for at the pump. Yes, the Cherokee certainly conformed to the old stereotype of Indian thirst; there were times when I wondered if I’d ever left the service station. And despite slurping gas prodigiously through its miserably complicated carburetor, the Chevy-sourced 2.8-liter V6 was a pokey turd.

And after 15 years and almost 200k miles, the Cherokee began to show the effects of its endless abuse. Right to the end, it was happy drifting on Oregon’s endless gravel logging roads.

We finally replaced it in 1999 with a Subaru Forester. So you can blame us for starting the CUV fad too.

In 1985, I started a Spanish language TV station. Having run a multi-lingual broadcast outlet for the world’s most famous guru, I was ready to rock and roll. There was only one minor detail: thirty million dollars. Fortunately, my partner and I found it. Unfortunately, we didn’t choose our sugar daddies carefully enough. It was a wild roller-coaster ride– even if I did end back on the ground. At least I got a sharp set of wheels out of the deal.

So, at 32, I became a part owner and General Manager of KVEA, the station that spawned Telemundo. I had a dream gig: buying stations and building a Spanish language TV network. And I got the company car of my dreams: a 1985 Mercedes 300E.

Mercedes’ all-new W124 series Benz had just arrived on the American automotive scene. It was an automotive milestone: the last time Mercedes would field a sedan that was far enough ahead of the competition to render it virtually meaningless.

The four-door German sedan certainly looked the part. It had the slipperiest body outside of a mud-wrestling pit, yielding the lowest drag coefficient of any car of its day. The 300E was also stuffed full of innovative technology: a new five-link rear suspension (air for the wagon), ABS brakes, fuel injection, air bags and a radical mono-blade windshield wiper. And it weighed less than 3200 lbs.

[Remind me again: why does today’s MB E350 weigh 600 lbs. more, get no better mileage, and have a terrible reliability rep? I guess MB engineers spent the last twenty-five years with more pressing problems, like Maybach and Chrysler.]

When I saw the 300E, it was déjà vu all over again. Just like the Thunderbird, I was gripped by an advanced case of veni, vidi, vici. I HAD to have one. And so I did.

The 300E fulfilled my every desire; it was as if I’d designed the car myself. It was a handsome beast (enhanced with oversize BBS wheels), as well as efficient, reliable, comfortable and solidly built. But most of all, it loved to roll.

The 300E was bred on the Autobahn, in the fast lane. Although its silky six only stumped-up 177 horses, it would do an honest 140mph. I verified its top speed (more impressive in 1985 than now) as soon as possible. And I had witnesses: Stephanie and our two little kids in the back. (She’s never complained; we’ve survived thirty years of accident-free fast driving together. Knock on wood.)

Every car has its “happy” cruising speed. The 300E’s was 110mph. I spent as much time as possible at that speed, savoring the blissful state of restful alertness that the velocity engendered.

Of course, my Mercedes’ magic carpet ride had its inherent risks: 110 was exactly double the posted speed limit. But the rules of the game were different then. California still had a state-wide ban on radar. The CHiPs would “play the ramps,” swooping down on speeders from on-ramps like fighter jets off the deck of a carrier, or an avian predator hunting for a kill.

Unlike today’s lop-sided hi-tech war, it was a sportsmanlike game of cat-and-mouse. By staying hyper-alert and using the rear-view mirror constantly, I excelled at recognizing cop cars from great distances. And slow down. Fast. In fact, I batted 1000– except for one “bear-in-the-air” ticket.

My 300E was like a rock, unshakeable no matter how rough the road or weather. It induced a feeling of security and well being every time I stepped inside. Too bad it couldn’t protect me from the storms brewing at work.

Telemundo’s majority owners were plugged into Michael Miliken’s junk-bond factory, and put in little of their own cash. The recession of 1991-1992 hit the media hard. When the crunch came, they walked. Foolishly, too, since NBC paid $2.7 billion for Telemundo in 2001.

Telemundo stock crashed and burned. Goodbye fortune. The final blow came when a new CEO fired the management ranks in a futile effort to justify his brief existence.

Aged 39, I was free again. I had never set out to be a corporate “suit.” I enjoyed the challenges, but not the politics, questionable ethics and “creative” financing. I never looked back, except for missing the Mercedes.

I’m intensely independent, and needed to live the rest of my life on my terms. So I sold the Benz, a token of an era now ending.

I had bought the 1966 Ford F-100 for $500 to haul brush. Now, hooked up to a trailer, I used it to move our stuff to Oregon in 1993. The Beverly Hillbillies were fed up with expensive, pretentious and crowded California, and were heading back to the hills.